Movie review: Landline’ doesn’t connect

Wednesday

Jul 26, 2017 at 12:32 PMJul 26, 2017 at 12:32 PM

Al Alexander More Content Now

Like its namesake, “Landline” is bulky, limited and bound by a cord that keeps it fixated in one place. Still, the call goes through. Hardly a ringing endorsement for the reunion of “Obvious Child” director Gillian Robespierre and that breakout comedy’s star, Jenny Slate. That they keep you from hanging up on their jumbled mix of narcissism and nostalgia is a testament to their ability to make pleasant conversation out of what proves quaint, cliched material. But both are clearly phoning it in.

Unlike “Obvious Child” and its ballsy freeform ability to draw laughs from a subject as serious as abortion, the 1990s-set “Landline” consistently plays it safe with its twin storylines about sisterhood and sexual infidelities. Smiles born of self-recognition are bountiful, but laughs are disappointingly sparse. That falls on Robespierre and her co-scripter/producer, Elisabeth Holm. Both get lazy with their storytelling, robbing the graves of rom-com sitcoms past to create a Franken-fable in which predictability and rote New York hipster characters rule. Their savior is a terrific cast that includes a mix of stalwarts like Edie Falco and John Turturro, up-and-comers like Slate and Finn Wittrock and one dazzling newcomer in Abby Quinn.

It’s Quinn, not Slate, who is “Landline’s” most efficient operator, stealing scene upon scene with a mellifluously foul mouth and refreshingly recalcitrant behavior. She’s Ali, the eerily look-alike 17-year-old spitfire sister of Slate’s Dana. It’s established early on that both are in crisis mode over the immediate future. For Ali, it’s the prospect of heading off to college and sowing the seeds of adulthood. For Dana, it’s a profound fear she’s made the wrong choice with her bland-but-adoring fiance, Ben (an excellent Jay Duplass from “Beatrix at Dinner”), who’s not exactly lighting a fire in the sack. Or, in the woods, as we see in the film’s opening scene where they are awkwardly going at it up against a tree.

Give Robespierre credit for immediately grabbing your attention. That scene definitely does it, as passion quickly turns to kvetching precipitated by an unwelcome swarm of insects and a patch of poison ivy — leaving Ben to finish “the job” alone. It’s kind of funny, but more importantly it sums up in a few short minutes the sorry state of their romance. It also clears the path for Dana to be tempted by the fruit of another when she crosses paths with her hunky high school flame, Nate (Wittrock in fully seductive mode). She’s not alone. It seems her father (Turturro giving henpecked husband a good name) is stepping out on Mom (Falco playing the kind of emasculating wife Tony Soprano would never recognize) with a mystery woman known only as “C.” Is Dana’s cheating hereditary? It might have been interesting to explore that idea, but the movie never stays in one place long enough to establish any of the family’s quandaries. And if the two affairs weren’t already enough for one 90-minute dramedy, Robespierre tosses in another major element concerning Ali’s reckless experimentation with heroin, a sidelight that not only feels tacked on, but callously flippant given the nation’s current opioid epidemic.

The various plot strands play out exactly as you’d expect, and with only a minimum of substance and insight. But there’s an affinity you form with the characters — especially the budding camaraderie between Dana and Ali — that enable the movie to involve and intrigue. You really like these people — even when they’re behaving badly. But why set it in 1995? Was it an excuse to hail must-see TV, Tower Records, Hillary Clinton and Lorena Bobbitt (Ouch!)? And why title it “Landline?” Is it a reference to us having severed the cord that held us together? More likely, it’s Robespierre yearning to recreate her youth, who — like Ali — was 17 in 1995. If that’s the case, why isn’t “Landline” more personal, more heartfelt and more reflective? As is, it’s little more than a pleasurable, unnecessary diversion. Sort of like the time you spend on a cell phone. How ironic.